Europa is not seen internationally as a model boy when it comes to small and medium-sized companies. And that although this includes more than 98 percent of the companies, these employ two thirds of the employees and generate almost 60 percent of the gross value added in the EU. A fact that the EU Commission would like to change as part of its initiative to promote the Capital Markets Union. In addition to many practical approaches, for example to promote and facilitate the raising of capital, she has also initiated a competition. Since 2015, this has been organized jointly with Europeanisseurs, the association of listed companies in Europe, and FESE, the association of European stock exchanges.
Each year three companies are awarded in four categories: the “International Star”, the “Star of Innovation”, the “Rising Star” and a star for the most convincing company of the current year (this time the “Star of 2021”). The awards for successful newcomers to the stock exchange promise to make small and medium-sized European companies more interesting for investors across borders, but above all to win over more companies to use the stock exchange to finance growth. In this article we present the winners of the year 2021, as well as the German applicant Compleo, for whom it was not quite enough to win in the category “Star of 2021”, but who was awarded as a so-called “Runner-Up”.
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